118 thoughts on “May 25, 2012: Timing”

  1. ESPN Stats & Info ‏@ESPNStatsInfo
    Justin Morneau's 451-foot home run is the longest home run of the season by a left-handed batter off a left-handed pitcher

    1. Pfft, wind-aided.

      Seriously, I think he hit the other HR and the line-drive double even harder.

      1. I can't comment on his double, which was hit very hard, but the home run he hit of Ohman was 0.1 mph slower than the one he hit off Reed.

        1. Pierzynski's home run had a speed off the bat of 95.5 mph. Mauer's home run was 106.5 mph.

          1. Or 153.7 km/h and 171.4 km/h, respectively, since we're talking about the Mountie here.

          2. This goes to show how much more valuable A.J. is. He can hit a ball 11 MPH slower and still get a home run.

  3. We are on the road tonight, so I won't be able to provide a recap of the game. Any offers to step in and pinch hit would be appreciated. Thanks.

    1. This is a Twins fan site, there are no pinch hitters. Now, if you want to get it started and have someone come on in relief, we might be able to help you.

      2. I think we should do it like Gardy would with his bullpen; multiple Citizens come in, adding their 2 cents, failing, then turning it over to the next reliever.

    2. I think you should say that you can do it a little late, hang on until it's ridiculously late and then finally get a replacement.

    1. I'm not sure I get what you are saying with this: it happens rarely, for sure, but what is the winning percentage of teams that do it?

      1. I think we're both confused here.

        I'm answering the question of what the record of teams that fulfill the criteria is.

        Edit: The win percentage was included since it's easier to think of it in terms of that.

        1. The criteria being more errors than hits? That happened 24,000+ times in the last decade?

          1. You're right. I'm a doofus. I must have been too amused with its rarity that I neglected to update the code to track losses.

  6. So you're telling me the Bible isn't pure fiction?* Hmm, good to know!

    *I realized after typing this that although we're pretty wide-ranging around here, religion isn't something we usually tackle and my sarcasm may not a). play well, b). be appreciated, or c). even be recognized as such. No offense was intended.

    1. archaeology is cool.

      One of the comments is, apparently, informative, however (at least in its first paragraph). It claims that there were two towns with the name "Bethlehem" in ancient Israel, raising questions as to whether this bulla does what the article claims.

      1. The Bethlehem of Jesus' birth was in Judah and this bulla was found near Jersusalem, which was also in Judah. The second Bethlehem was in the northern part of Israel and Judah is in the south. It could be possible that it is referring to the one in the north, but it is more likely to be referring to the Bethlehem that is much closer, especially given the difficulty of travel at the time.

        1. especially given the difficulty of travel at the time.

          The first time I read this my mind definitely moved the word 'time' to the place before the word 'time.' It made things a lot cooler.

            1. Huh. How about that.

              Let's try "the first time I read this my mind definitely moved the word 'time' to the place before the word 'travel.'"

    1. Mauer and Morneau are both at 137 OPS+. Along with Willingham, the Twins are the only AL team with three players with that high of an OPS+ and at least 100 PAs. And it seems like Mauer and Morneau are just now starting to hit.

      1. Imagine if the starting pitching were even mediocre. We'll get 'em next year, right boys?

      2. 137 OPS+? For each of them?

        BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        1. You can't boo Morneau, he's been hurt. Poor guy. Mauer on the other hand has been faking it. He's not even smart enough to make up injuries that sound real or anyone's even heard of.

          1. In fairness, Morneau got his lumps in during 2010 and a fair bit of 2011.

            "What do you mean he can't play because of a concussion? MMA fighters get concussions all the time. Football players get concussions and come back later in the game!"

            - No particular source, but I heard this sentiment several dozen times in fall, 2010.

    2. AL leaders in wOBA, which correctly weights OBP vs. SLG and also adjust for park factors:

      .370 -- Mauer
      .360 -- AJP
      .342 -- "Mauer with Power"
      .336 -- Carlos Santana
      (everyone else below average)

  8. Long story short, it looks like the Milkmaid and I are moving at least twice in the next three months. Ugh.

    Wait...what???

    1. Good point, that seems really inefficient.

      Hope its all for good things, Spooks.

  9. At work we have a weekly trivia contest and we parcel out who's responsible for each week. This was my week and I decided to do 6 word movie reviews. Everyone got M,T,W but no one got TH or F. Here they are, see if you can figure out TH and F. Maybe they were just too obscure.

    M. Foreigner goes ape in New York

    T. Fish makes a messy beach holiday

    W. Fun loving Texas couple get holy

    TH. Adoptee breaks law and makes new ones

    F. Is this Iowa? No it’s Heaven

    1. Seriously? No one got F? That was an easy one for me. Struggling with TH.

      2. Really, you got Friday? Put your answer in the spoiler. Read it carefully however.

        For Thursday, get rid of the "and"

            1. I apparently didn't see this movie, then, because I know of no other movie that would confuse the two. (And I think I could make a fairly convincing argument that my answer is also correct).

              1. I thought the same as you, but looked up the quote after free said to read it carefully. The quote in Field of Dreams is "Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa". Unless you want to claim free's clue is wrong, I don't see how you could argue your answer is right.

                1. Bunch of dead guys playing the game they love. Seems like they made Heaven on Earth in Iowa.

            2. Yeah, I didn't realize the way you had it at first. I like it.

              Here's a guess, though I don't remember the movie well enough to know if it works:

              Spoiler SelectShow

            1. I'll admit that I thought of that one before I settled on a genre, see my comment below.

    3. I'm thinking they are too obscure, and I admit that the description could work for multiple movies. So here's what I was thinking for each:

      Spoiler SelectShow

        1. I meant the clues for Thursday and Friday were obscure. All the movies are quite well known.

          1. I laughed at the clue once I read the answer, but I already knew I have a twisted sense of humor.

          1. Spoiler SelectShow

      1. How do people die in Texas Chainsaw massacre? Any of them with holes through them?

  10. So, fangraphs is saying that if Mauer plays the way he has so far in 2012 for the rest of the season, he'll be worth $25 million. His contract pays him $23 million.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! {deep breath} BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  11. Comment on story about Dwight Howard:

    Move the premadona

    Isn't that supposed to be pre-madonna?

    2. I love when extremely stupid people try to handle a difficult word or phrase. I had a picture of Skim and I as my avatar on a poker site, and one guy asked, "SPPOKY ARE YOU A PETEL FILE???"

      It took me a few moments to even figure out what he meant.

      1. And I love how they apparently can't take 10 seconds and google it to be sure. But then again, they're so far off, google'd probably throw up it's hands and just give them ads.

      2. When we moved into a new office, the admin sent out an email listing some known issues. One was something called "Pedafiles". Presumably they're a kind of filing cabinet or something, but it was funny to see an email go out telling us about problems with the pedafiles in the new building.

  12. There's a perfect storm of factors contributing to my inability to pay attention at work today. All week built to a trail that happened yesterday, so today is the calm after the storm. I've got an interview next week for a different job. And there's a long weekend coming up... yeah. No work is getting done today. I should probably just embrace it.

      1. Sonofa... apparently I need to start spel cheking everythng beforee I postt it.

  13. Okay, more dead horse beating.

    The table below shows Joe Mauer's value (per fangraphs) in each season and his pay for each season, with a cumulative total in the last column. To date, he's provided $87 million more value than what he's been paid. But, yeah, bad year last year. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    Year Pay Value Value-Pay to Date
    2004 0.3 3.8 3.5
    2005 0.325 11.7 14.875
    2006 0.4 23.7 38.175
    2007 3.75 12.8 47.225
    2008 6.25 27.3 68.275
    2009 10.5 35.7 93.475
    2010 12.5 22.2 103.175
    2011 23 7 87.175
    2012 6.25 6.7 87.628

    1. Since 2004, The Greatest Catcher in Twins History has been worth $55.3 million, or 36.6% of a Mauer.

    2. Mauer's also played in 43 of 44 games and played the entire game in 42 games, so he's had only one game off completely and that was after he got drilled on his knee by a foul ball. Over the next nine games, he went 4-for-31, but since then, he's batting .378/.509/.578 over the last 13 games.

  14. i found this in my photo file, and for the life of me, i can't remember the context:

    2. Apparently it moves across four planes for AAA hitters. His K/9 has jumped to 14.6. His walk rate has also increased, but his K-BB was a net gain.

      1. It's a one-dimensional pitch! That's gotta be nearly impossible to hit with a three-dimensional bat!

    3. I'd like to have a look at Guerra - mostly because I'd given that up trade up for dead. It'd be cool to see something come out of it, even if it was only a decent reliever.

      1. If the Twins get a ~1.5 WAR/year reliever, then it's reasonable to say they ended up ahead on the trade. If they didn't make the trade, that's -12 million, +4-5 wins in 2008, and two late draft picks; that totals up to about +2 net wins in 2008 (they paid for about three wins) and +3-4 future wins. By making the trade, that's +12 million, whatever they got out of Rauch, Gomez, Hardy, &c (is it positive even?), plus ~5-6 future wins in Guerra.

      2. I don't really have an issue with Guerra or Oliveros being called up- I think they both look like they might be decent power arms.

    4. For all I know, they may be right about Slama, but it's pretty obvious they're never going to give him the chance to prove they're wrong.

        1. Again, they may be right about him. The thing is, once you make up your mind that a player isn't good enough, you can always find reasons to justify your decision, because no player is perfect. Harmon Killebrew strikes out too much. Rod Carew doesn't have enough power and can't play defense. Kirby Puckett hits into too many double plays. Slama has done everything he could possibly do in the minors to deserve a chance, but he's not going to get one as long as he's in the Twins' organization, because they've already decided he can't make it.

          1. The best thing that could happen to him is that some other team picks him in the rule 5 draft. He has to be eligible for that at some point, right?

            1. When he was DFAed off the 40-man last fall he cleared waivers, so every other organization had a shot at him and passed.

            2. B-R says he has four years of minor league service time. I don't remember the rules precisely, but he has to be close. I don't know how many option years he has remaining, but he's not far from being a minor league free agent. However, at 28, he doesn't have many peak years remaining.

              1. The Rule 5 draft requires being in the organization for four years if the player was signed at 19 or older, so I think he would have been eligible for this past December's draft after having been removed from the 40-man.

      2. A fairer wording, but pretty much the same thing I said about Chuck James last summer.
        How does this org ever figure they're gonna entice marginal minor-league free-agents-with-potential to join the team?
        If there's a Dennys Reyes-type out there, ready to give a team a few years of two-ish ERAs out of the bullpen, I can't see how that man signs with the Twins.
        Unless they sign him to a 2-year major-league deal to be a starter.

          1. Or even Burton. Maybe all clubs treat their chattel the same way. Maybe respecting your non-prospect AAAA players as potential MLB contributors will be the new inefficiency for teams to exploit.

    5. Randy Flores. Phil Dumatrait. Jim Hoey. Dusty Hughes. Eric Hacker. Matt Maloney. All those guys have taken up space in the bullpen over the last few years while Anthony Slama has been in Rochester. Would Slama really do worse than that crew?

  16. Tom Stuifbergen threw forty-five pitches in the bullpen today without pain, so at least there's some good news on the injury front for a change.

  17. Holy cats. The ownership and master printer of the shop that expressed interest in employing me have extended formal interest. I'm floored. Absolutely. Floored.

    I don't know how this happened, or why I deserve such a supportive spouse, but man o man it feels good to be a gangsta.

      1. Yes,yes,no. I have to buy the turtle neck with my own cash. It should be tax deductible.

Comments are closed.